Clara Irazabal

This paper examines the evolution and recent trends in the design of Entertainment Retail Centres (ERCs) in Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Most of the literature on spaces of consumption and leisure deals with economic reasons for the development of these spaces, and with the social, cultural, and political implications of the phenomenon. There are limitations to this approach that this study addresses. First, there has been a lack of attention to processes of globalization in the analysis of these spaces. Furthermore, a largely US-centred approach has left out an understanding of the significance of the ERC phenomenon in other ...

Clara Irazabal

Gated communities and edge cities are new forms of space production and consumption that promote changes in the character of public space and citizens' participation in public life. This study unveils the phenomena of their creation as a paradoxical attempt to return to community. Curitiba's examples of gated communities and edge cities show that, despite being internationally showcased as a model of good planning and urban design, this metropolis has not been immune to the global capital pressures and urban design tendencies occurring in many urban areas throughout the world, thus signalling both the currency and trans-nationality of these ...

Clara Irazabal

A welcome addition to the understudied field of Latino cultures and their linkages to place, this book transcends the common approaches to the study of demographic, racial, political, and cultural changes brought about by the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S., to focus instead on Latinos' "different geographies, and social adjustments to diverse places" (p. 1). Contributors were selected from presenters at the 2002 Association of American Geographers meeting in Los Angeles, but most of the authors are not Latino or female.